Minister O’Donovan and Workday CTO Launch AmCham’s 2025 Business Report in San Francisco

AmCham was honoured to be joined by Patrick O’Donovan TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and Jim Stratton, Chief Technology Officer, Workday, for the launch of AmCham’s 2025 US-Ireland Business report: ‘Succeeding Together: Driving Transatlantic Innovation and Trade’, in San Francisco this week.  

The launch event took place in Ireland House, San Francisco, with more than 50 AmCham members, business leaders and stakeholders.  

Speaking at the launch, Minister O’Donovan said: “The relationship between Ireland and the United States is enormous,” and noted that it is a mutually beneficial, two-way partnership.  

“There are upwards of a quarter of a million people now working in the United States of America, ordinary, decent, taxpaying Americans, in all 50 states, who are working for Irish companies, small, medium and large."

"Some supported by the IDA, some supported by Enterprise Ireland, some just supported by themselves, getting on with it and being a big trading partner for us and globally as well.”  

Minister O’Donovan added that AmCham’s 2025 Business Report “really goes some way” to capturing “in a small publication, just what it (the relationship) means.” 

Also speaking about the Report, Jim Stratton, Chief Technology Officer at Workday, said “It’s a great roadmap for where we can go together from an investment standpoint.” 

Jim also spoke about the importance of competitiveness and innovation for business growth and development.  

“We know, at least in the technology world, innovation is really what drives that competitiveness, particularly with the pace of technological evolution and how fast things are going right now, innovation really drives that.”  

He noted that with the European Commission citing competitiveness as the “primary factor that’s going to drive European policy over the course of the next five years”, there is a “very strong opportunity” for the US-Ireland relationship to “continue to grow across both sides.”  

Attendees also heard from AmCham's Head of Partnerships, Tara Keane and the Consul General of Ireland in San Francisco, Micheál Smith.  
 
A huge thank you to Micheál and the team at the Consulate General of Ireland in San Francisco for hosting us for this event.  

You can read the full AmCham 2025 US-Ireland Business Report here.